complaining that catches had declined and 

 that red sore disease was on the rise. Many 

 claimed that they had not seen red sores on 

 fish until the early 1970s, when the algal 

 blooms began. Surveys revealed red sore 

 outbreaks from the Chowan River to the 

 Scuppemong River, with the highest 

 incidence in the Chowan. 



In 1976, an outbreak of the disease 

 killed about 95 percent of the Albemarle 

 Sound's white perch population. Research- 

 ers determined that the sores were caused 

 by Aeromonas hydrophila, a bacteria that 

 flourishes in polluted water. They sus- 

 pected that environmental stress from the 

 declining water quality in the Chowan 

 River was contributing to the outbreaks. 

 The only way to fight the disease was to 

 improve water quality. 



A fertilizer plant near Tunis was 

 implicated as a primary source of nutrients 

 contributing to the algal bloom problem in 

 the Chowan River. As many as 4,000 

 pounds of nitrogen were being discharged 

 from the plant into the river each day. 



Research also strongly implicated 

 farming practices and changes in drainage 

 and forest cover as contributors to the 

 problem. Researchers from the University 

 of North Carolina at Chapel Hill noted that 

 though there had been a decrease in 

 farmland in the river basin since 1950, the 

 yields for all major crops had risen due to 

 mechanization and increased fertilizer 

 usage. This study also documented that 67 

 percent of the North Carolina farmland in 

 the Chowan River had been ditched for 

 drainage to the river, compared to only 6 

 percent of Virginia farmland. In addition, 

 there was a 30 percent decrease in wet- 

 lands forested with oak, gum and cypress 

 in the North Carolina portion of the basin 

 between 1964 and 1974. 



These changes in land use are signifi- 

 cant to nutrient loading. Increased fertilizer 

 use creates a greater potential for excess 

 nutrient runoff . Ditching and draining of 

 cropland decreases the travel time of water 

 moving from a field to a nearby creek or 

 stream, thus reducing the time for microbes 

 in the soil to break down excess nutrients. 

 Research has shown that swamp forests in 



the Chowan River basin can remove 83 

 percent of the nitrogen and 5 1 percent of 

 the phosphorus from streams that pass 

 through them. The loss of these habitats 

 means greater release of nutrients into 

 waterways. 



The Chowan, Pasquotank and 

 Roanoke are the primary rivers that feed the 

 Albemarle Sound. The Albemarle is 

 considered a lagoonal estuary because it is 

 very shallow and has a slow flushing rate 

 since the Outer Banks restrict the water's 

 exchange with the ocean. The Albemarle 

 Sound is only about 20 feet deep at its 

 center. As a result, the lower portions of the 

 rivers and the sound they drain into have a 

 relatively small volume and are sensitive to 

 nutrient loading. 



Dedicated Volunteers 



When retired Navy Capt. Alfred 

 Howard moved to Edenton in 1974, he 

 quickly realized that something was wrong 

 with the river. He had fallen in love with the 

 Chowan in 1967, while on leave from his 

 ship in Norfolk, Va. On a drive along the 

 coast, he stopped in Edenton, saw that there 

 were lots for sale along the river and bought 

 one the same afternoon. Now, after buying 

 two more lots, he has 165 feet of waterfront 

 property. 



But in 1974 and 1975, the river was in 

 "pretty bad shape," Howard says. "It stunk 

 like an open sore." When the algal blooms 

 were thriving, the surface of the water was a 

 thick green sludge that rarely cleared. 

 "There were days when the wind blew in 

 the right direction and blew it to the other 



20 SPRING 1999 



